The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARR INCORPORATED The Evening News and The Morning News. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1871.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 603, 15 December 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARR INCORPORATED The Evening News and The Morning News.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1871.

For tne cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance,

And the good that we can do."

"We are very much pleased to see the spirit of sense and self help displayed by the members of the Provincial Council. When these gentlemen give their services to the country it is only reasonable that the country should recipi'ocate the compliment by recognising those services in some tangible and intelligible form. Honorable members having in their hands the purse strings are quite warranted in interpreting the generous wishes of the public, and takjng for granted that they are those whom the country delighteth to honor.

Some time ago the wrong done to honorable members in there being charged for the injury done to the public roads by their horses' hoofs and the wheels of their buggies was the theme of declamation. Subsequently it was found that cold water had a deleterious effect on the mucous membrane of houoiable gentlemen's stomachs; and hot coffee was found to be an indispensable requisite to efficient legislation. But on yesterday evening a far more honest attempt was made to contribute to the wellbeing of our local legislators. It was moved that payment of a round sum per diem should be made to all members, urban as well as rural alike. This was rejected by the Council, though on what grounds we fail to see. Judging from the growing tendency to provide the members with little comforts and to grant them immunities there cannot be a question that in a short time the total expenditure on members will amount to more than the proposed fifteen shillings a day; and a round sum being thus given to all alike, we should have grounds for protesting against any further ministering to the comfort of members. The hot coffee, for example, which means coffee-royal, will be found to mount up to a nice little sum, for any arbitrary limits fixed will never stand in the way, when members themselves are the judges. And this coffee may be regarded as but the foretaste of other good things to come. If hot coffee, why not hot joints and plum pudding, for the principle once admitted, that honorable members should be sustained in their arduous duties, the amount of sustenance is but a question of detail. We by no means censure the tendency of the Provincial Council. It is human nature. All men feel the impulse to help themselves when they can, and the members of Council can, restrained only by the sense of decency. But now that the hot coffee has been voted, that limit of restraint has been already passed, and it is therefore that we regret the defeat of Mr Cadman's very sensible proposition.